


nothing safe is worth the drive (and still I'd follow you home)

by orphan_account



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Comfort, Driving, First Love, Introspection, Late at Night, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21556648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: And all he can think is,I want to see him.
Relationships: Hijikata Toshirou/Sakata Gintoki
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	1. First Breath After Coma

**Author's Note:**

> did a bit of editing on this one and changed the title... and added another chapter

With the sky and the trees blurring, the scenery loses its edging sharpness. It’s almost as if nature has forgotten how to be green with the cold chiming in, welcoming the upsetting gray.

In front of his house Gintoki halts, panting, palms on bent knees. The sudden drizzle, foreboding a storm hiding behind the gathered clouds, forced him to cut short his afternoon run. And that is when he sees his father’s truck parked in the driveway.

The abrupt idea pierces him like an arrow, sparking impulsiveness as he quickly sets to find the keys.

He thinks about letting his fingers skim above the lit screen in the rush to send a text to his _love_ , but decides against it, opting to hear the low cadence of his voice instead as he dials to call.

In the anticipation that follows, his inhales and exhales increase and fall in sync with the rhythm of his heartbeats and there is a certain urgency that forces itself inside him with the rumble of the motor coming to life while he drives what has become a one way road in his mind.

And all he can think is, _I want to see him._

With how often he has been down this road he’s memorized the creaks littering the sidewalk. He tilts his head up once he comes to a stop, searching for him.

Toshiro is sitting by the rooftop, cigarette in hand as he smokes the minutes by, minutes that have kept them apart since the call. There is almost no contrast to the way his silhouette stands with the darkening sky, still graying in the dying light of the faded evening.

It only takes a breath for him to get noticed.

Gintoki’s heart skips over several beats when the boy is already on the ground, quickly erasing the distance between them. He raps a fist against the worn out hood, fringe pushed somewhat to the side by the wind, his cotton white shirt stretched to reveal a sliver of smooth, unblemished skin when he bends to look through the window.

“Gintoki, what have you done?”

The adoring _smile_ in his voice drives away the last tendrils of gray from the edges of Gintoki’s vision, filling his world with screaming colors.

And with his heart whole, he smiles back.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Cutting through the stillness, he drives down gray asphalt streets without a destination in mind.

The dark is falling in like the end to a burnt summer, but it is not the stifling heat of those long lost nights he is chasing after.

He prefers the screech of wheels on water-slicked roads during the year’s last months, with its cold people, and freezing air, icy enough to crystallize his thoughts so he can never lose them.

Slanting his gaze to the passenger seat, he finds a waiting pair of ice blue irises- the smoke filling up Toshiro’s lungs is different from the swirls making up his smoky eyes, its gray is _bearable._

In droplets, the sky lets go of its heaviness and he fiddles with the stereo to find a tune it can harmonize with. At the action he receives a curiously raised brow, and replies with a shake of the head and the shadow of a smile.

A song starts.

The slow, mellow notes fill the space in the car, and the space between them, and it is endless.

Depending on the perspective one has on life, this is the kind of melody you could cry to, you could smile along to, or you could fall in love to.

Whoever said songs need words to be understood?

(Whoever said people need words to understand each other?)

His hand doesn’t belong to him anymore once their fingers brush, only to slowly intertwine. Toshiro kisses his knuckles softly, sending a hundred chills racing through him, enough to make him pause. The gesture is dripping in honey and sweetness. And Gintoki _laughs_ it off, hiding his _embarrassment_ with it.

He has never known affection before him, not the kind that shatters through ribs bruised black and blue in its unrelenting search of a carefully tucked heart.

And it's _funny_ in a sad sort of way.

People talk about being breathless when overwhelmed with love, but Gintoki was able to break through the surface of scalding hot waters and come up for a breath of freezing cold air only after he _met_ him.

If they ever end, he would stop breathing once again.

And it’s crazy.

Two headlights burn through the sleepless night.

The whole wide world is made up of the two of them, racing along the cityscape.

The rain drops scattered in the windshield shine with the distant lights of the town, framing in the sights they witness as they speed by, as they keep each other company with their warmth.

He has never really _craved_ to feel for more than his skin lets him be as it traps him in. And still, _on nights like these,_ roaming empty streets, far from the others, living for each other’s eyes only… he feels ten feet tall, he feels he could maybe be big enough to turn the world’s _wrongs_ into _rights._

And to think one person is enough to change the perception of what he _thought_ he _knew._

Maybe this is the real crazy, absurd aspect of it all.

_Hold on to this._

The thought buries itself in his mind as if leaving its roots in.

When there are but a few comforts in life that guarantee certainty, _hope_ may be a treacherous road to walk down in two.

And still, he hopes with every fiber of his being that this euphoric journey filled with gut-wrenching happiness lasts.

And he hopes one day they won’t grow, grow up too much, too much to still remember, to still know how to do this _,_ how to get away, how to pause the world around them.

How to _breathe._

And he decides with an unfamiliar sense of clarity, if this ever changing future holds no way for them he will take the wheel and fake a path.

Because _on nights like these_ they could even learn how to build their own road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After accidentally discovering this nostalgic song I hadn't heard in years, and after reading a beautiful comment from 'Fuzzy Nova' where he described his experience listening to this song for the first time (it's one of the first comments right under this song), it just painted this perfect picture in my mind of two boys driving away from the gray of the town they live in. And I just had to write this.
> 
> [ Explosions In The Sky- First breath after coma](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0o8JCxjjpM)


	2. Your Hand In Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today I needed a distraction... very _badly._ And I ended up writing two things.  
> This is one of them.

They ended up driving for hours and hours, going round and round without a destination in mind, at least at first, only to find themselves in a clearing, on the outskirts of their hometown. Their favorite place. Blades of grass grow thick and green, and the water from the nearby pond is translucent and clean, this is the place they come to when they want, _need,_ to get away from everything, a rather remote location where silence reigns and time stands still.

An overcast of gray clouds had the night filled with the promise of a downpour, and even if the air is thick with mist and the soothing smell of the rain, the moon is now peeking out from the cloud cover overhead, filtering its beam through the crystal clear pool as the stars gleam and reflect on the water below, glowing without any pollution to dim their shine.

And Gintoki looks over at him, lit by the backdrop of the moonlight as shades of blue streak the sky behind him, enveloping his silhouette.

His feet move of their own accord, body, mind and soul gravitating towards him, cutting through gaps of spaces between them, like a fragile planet spinning towards its very own personal sun.

He feels so heavy, and so light, craving him like he craves oxygen, craving the comfort of his touch when all the truths in the world have left him empty, have left his hope feeling broken.

Leaning his head on his back, and he can feel the steady, quickening beats of his heart, mirroring his own, and his heart's just about to crack open.

All this aching, all this hurt he still has to learn how to push through, if he could just… get _rid of it_ somehow, if he could just tear it out of his skin and breathe out all the despair, if he could just give him all his sunshine and dry out the rain, if only he could just give him the best parts of himself and get to erase the worst.

But Toshiro had always made it clear, he wants all parts of him, wants him even if he's bruised golden and blue.

Would he run away with him if only he asked him to? Would the two of them be enough to face whatever lies ahead? Would he follow him into the dark, where the hurricanes will take their destructive turn until the dawn, until the break of a new day will drench them in freedom and sun.

Gintoki leans a step back, physically unable to give him more space with the way he craves his closeness, but lets him turn until they are standing face to face.

And their eyes cross paths across the inches of distance separating them.

Reading in those eyes more than words, more than anything he could have ever spoken, raptured in his pure gaze and pure intentions, icy teal eyes like fireworks exploding in the sky.

Gintoki's hand finds the firmness of his shoulder, grasps it, feels grounded.

Fingers threading through his locks, grazing his nape, Toshiro slowly draws in, but without hesitation, tugging him forward.

Eyes closing, mouths pressing warmly, this sweetness in him has Gintoki melting, liquefying in his limbs, aching inside his bones.

And their hands by their sides are a shivering touch away, until their palms meet, fingers loosely entwine, _your hand in mine._

Just like a wistful dream, lips meshing softly, breath mingling gently, the summer air and the taste of him, whispers of affection brushed across his skin.

Kisses like butterfly bandages over wounds bleeding sorrow, and he's never ever needed anything more in his life.

And he keeps falling and falling, and falling for him.

And it hurts like heaven.

Forever going with the flow, _but you're friction._

He sinks into the peace, into the quiet of the moment, now that the world is just made up of them, feels like he gets to have him in pieces, coming apart and coming up for air, unraveling for his eyes only in this one embrace that no one knows.

Just one more thing for him to lock away and safely keep, tuck underneath his heart where no one else can see.

They stay wrapped up in each other, losing track of time, losing themselves.

The first drops of sunlight peek out over the horizon, erasing any remaining trace of shadows, coloring the fading gray, and brightness replaces the dregs of darkness as the hours fly by like swirls of smoke dissolving in the sky as they dissolve in each other.

The dawn is breaking over a new day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was also inspired by a medley of songs really, but this is the one I listened to on repeat [ Your Hand in Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdiY6kijYHE)


End file.
